


Of Dogs and Kids

by skyblue_reverie



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Sort Of, Transporter Malfunction, and tooth-rotting adorableness, slash or preslash if you want it to be, warning for reference to offscreen animal cruelty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 21:00:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20699771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: Where before, there had been two to beam up – he and Jim were the last ones to return from the away mission – now there were four on the transporter pad.





	Of Dogs and Kids

**Author's Note:**

> Written for challenge #023 at [Dreamwidth's fandomweekly challenge comm.](https://fandomweekly.dreamwidth.org/) The challenge prompt was "inner child" with a bonus for including a pet or companion animal. It was just too perfect to resist.
> 
> Expanded slightly since then 'cause limiting myself to 1000 words is HARD. If you want to read the original version where I HAD to, [go here](https://fandomweekly.dreamwidth.org/246035.html). :p
> 
> Also, [visual inspiration for puppy!Jim.](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-06/13/9/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web14/sub-buzz-12478-1465825086-1.png?downsize=700:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)

McCoy cautiously opened his eyes once he felt like all his bits and pieces were in place and his feet were firmly planted on the Enterprise’s transporter pad. Damn, he hated beaming, worse than he hated shuttles. He’d learned to tolerate it, but that was the most that could be said. At least it seemed like this time there hadn’t been any disastrous transporter malfunctions.

Then his eyes focused. Where before, there had been two to beam up – he and Jim were the last ones to return from the away mission – now there were four on the transporter pad. To be specific, three human beings, one of them a child, and a dog. And peering at the kid, he could see… yeah, it was definitely his own younger self. Little Lenny McCoy, gangly and awkward with dark hair flopping into his eyes. 

“God DAMN it,” he roared. It seemed like the transporter pulled this shit every week.

The dog – no more than a puppy, really – gave a whimper of distress at the yell and promptly pissed itself, right on the transporter pad. He felt a pang of guilt; he hadn’t meant to scare the dog - or the kid, for that matter. Meanwhile, Scotty was looking mystified, and Jim was sweeping his eyes over all of them, assessing the situation. 

McCoy had at least a small piece of the puzzle, and so he moderated his tone with an effort and jerked his head toward his younger self. “That’s me, Jim,” he said. “Or, at least, that’s some version of Leonard McCoy, age approximately eight.”

Said eight-year-old had dropped to his knees, right into the puddle of dog pee, and was cuddling the puppy, glaring daggers at McCoy for having scared it so badly. McCoy snorted. He had invented that glare and perfected it over the years; he wasn’t going to be intimidated by his own childhood version of it. Little Lenny turned his attention back to the puppy, crooning at it and stroking its floppy ears.

McCoy’s annoyance melted away. Hell, he’d always had a soft spot for kids and dogs, even if he kept it well hidden. While Jim and Scotty conferred about the latest transporter catastrophe, McCoy crouched down – carefully _out_ of the puddle of piss, thank you very much – and ran his tricorder over the boy and the dog, which looked like some sort of golden retriever or lab mix, but with startlingly blue eyes. 

The boy appeared fine and completely healthy, and was obviously ignoring any fear or distress at the odd situation he found himself in in favor of caring for the dog. So, pretty much how Leonard remembered being as a kid. Taking care of others had always been his preferred way of dealing with stressful situations. Well, that and fifths of bourbon, once he got older.

But the puppy – now that he was looking, it was in bad shape. Starved, so skinny that its ribs were clearly visible through its skin, scared to death, cowering in child-McCoy’s arms, and – yeah, with signs of a recent beating, and a crooked tail that looked like it had been broken and had healed without being set. McCoy felt his blood boiling with rage at whoever had done this. He calmed himself with an effort – his anger would only scare the puppy more, and he’d made that mistake once already – and noticed a collar and tags around its neck.

“May I look at the tags?” he asked child-McCoy. Kid-him regarded him warily for a moment, then gave a grudging nod. He gently took the tags in his hand and read the words. On the first tag, it just said “JIM.” On the second tag, it said, “Property of Frank and Winona Carter, RR #1, Riverside, IA.”

He’d half-expected it, but it was still a blow. The smaller beings on the transporter pad were obviously some sort of manifestation of their younger selves. Their “inner children,” as twenty-first century psychology would have put it. Naturally, Jim had to be different in this as in everything else, and his inner child wasn’t a human child. But even as a puppy, he bore all the signs of abuse and trauma that Jim had only ever hinted at, usually when drunk. 

Leonard tried to gently remove the puppy from kid-McCoy’s arms so he could get a closer look at the injuries, but the puppy growled and bared its tiny teeth at him, and kid-McCoy pulled it - _him_ \- away from Leonard, hunching down over the puppy to protect him with his own body. Leonard hastily withdrew his hands, holding them up in a gesture of surrender. 

“Lenny, right?” he asked the kid - himself, and good god was _that_ weird - who nodded suspiciously. “Okay. Listen. That puppy needs medical care, and I’m a doctor. You can carry him, but can you follow me to sickbay, so I can treat him?”

“A’right,” Lenny said after a moment, his southern accent so much thicker than McCoy’s was after years of trying to train it out of himself so he’d be taken seriously, not treated like some backwoods hick.

He stood and said to Jim, “We’re going to medbay.” Jim nodded at him absently but was obviously still entirely occupied by his conversation with Scotty. 

“Oh, and the kid is me, but that puppy is _you_,” McCoy drawled, enjoying the look of startled confusion on Jim’s face. “And you pissed on the transporter pad!” he added as a parting shot.

Over the next week, Lenny and the puppy, which Lenny had started calling “Jimbo,” became a familiar sight around the Enterprise. The puppy went everywhere with Lenny, at first slinking behind him like he expected to be attacked at any moment and needed Lenny to protect him, but as time went by, he started leading the way, head up and crooked tail waving proudly, running ahead to thoroughly investigate anyone and anything new he encountered, and then dashing back to Lenny’s side, letting out little yips of excitement at his discoveries. Lenny, for his part, was obviously devoted to the puppy - taking care of him, playing fetch and tug-of-war with him, and, of course, giving a death glare to anyone who even looked like they were going to say or do something that might upset him.

Scotty finally calibrated the transporter to combine them back into their usual selves, and McCoy felt a pang of what was almost regret. But when the sparkling from the beam had cleared, and he opened his eyes again, he found that he could remember everything that had happened during that week as both a child and as an adult, and his affection for and protectiveness of Jim simply merged with that of Lenny for the puppy, magnifying the bond between Jim and Bones, which was already the strongest of either of their lives. Glancing over at Jim, who was grinning at him, McCoy knew he felt the same way. He ruffled Jim’s hair and said, “Hey there, Jimbo.” They were going to be okay.


End file.
